


Fear of Flying Part III

by mad_teagirl



Series: Fear of Flying [3]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-31
Updated: 2011-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_teagirl/pseuds/mad_teagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She placed her hand lightly on his arm and smiled, and he wished he could stop looking at her mouth, at that gap in her front teeth, and stop wanting to kiss her until those lips were bruised and swollen, and where on earth had that idea even come from?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear of Flying Part III

  


  


  
  


  


  
**Fear of Flying  
Part III**   


One year, two months, and three days after he was assigned Christine.

It was his thirtieth birthday and he hoped to God he could get through the day without having to deal with it.

He stopped into his office, briefly to check the duty rosters for the next week.  
What he found, however, was Jim Kirk sitting on his desk swinging his legs.

“Happy Thirtieth Bones, I’m going to get you too drunk to spell your name tonight! On me!” He told him, looking pleased enough with himself to give McCoy cause to worry.

“If it’s all the same to you Jim, I would really prefer just to stay in tonight, you know, catch up on some paper work.” Jim stood up at that, with a look of mock horror.

“No! It’s your birthday, and you are not spending it by yourself doing medical hoo-ha when there is fine alcohol about! Besides.” He said swiping at an object on McCoy’s desk. “Looks like you have a birthday present.”

“Oh of all the stupid-” McCoy grumbled under his breath as he walked to his desk and eyed what Jim was poking at. A black leather doctor’s bag from the early 20th century, complete with instruments.

“Card.” Jim said absently, as he rested his chin on McCoy’s shoulder and poked around him at the paper affixed to the bag.  
 _Happy birthday - Christine._

“Jim, you wouldn’t have _happened_ to let slip to her that it was my birthday would you?” McCoy asked slowly, testing the sound of his voice and trying not to sound too enraged. Kirk held his hands up defensively.

“Hey man, I told her _nothing_. The detective work was all her. Incidentally, she’s meeting us at the bar, so now you have to come. Be a good birthday boy, come to the bar, throw back a few drinks, say thank you to the pretty girl. You know, act like a fucking human and not a computer Bones.”

McCoy sighed and grudgingly went along with it.

At the bar Christine grinned from ear-to-ear at seeing him and nearly spilled her soda on his shoes as she bounced up on her toes to plant a feather light kiss on his cheek, murmuring “happy birthday, Doctor.” in his ear. Her breath was warm against his face and his act of annoyance at the whole situation became more of a charade in her presence.

“Thanks for the present” He said under his breath, and she somehow beamed even more.

“You liked it?” She chirped happily. Jim loped away after a girl he spotted at the far end of the room, and the muscles in McCoy’s shoulders relaxed at being just with her, he slumped a bit against the bar.

“That had to be expensive though-” She waved her hand at him.

“Forget it, you only turn thirty once.” She had become less royal pain, and more golden retriever puppy. Though he had no idea how and when this had come about. She shifted to lean against the bar next to him; the lights of the club made lazy colors and shapes across her skin and hair. It made her look … perfect.

All large eyes and delicate mouth and hair like ripe wheat.

“Chapel-” He started

“Call me Christine.” Calling her Christine would be a form of intimacy, he wondered if she knew that, what she had offered him. She placed her hand lightly on his arm and smiled, and he wished he could stop looking at her mouth, at that gap in her front teeth, and stop wanting to kiss her until those lips were bruised and swollen, and where on earth had that idea even come from?

And then along came Jim Kirk, boy genius, looping an arm around Christine’s shoulders as he squeezed himself between her and McCoy with a sheepish grin.

“Christine, darlin’ come dance with me?” She quirked an eyebrow at Jim.

“Why? Couldn’t get any one else to?” He feigned shock.

“What is so suspect about me wanting to dance with the prettiest girl here?”

“And it’s got nothing to do with the fairly put out looking woman coming this way?”  
Jim groaned and rubbed his temple wearily.

“Okay, so I sort of had a one time thing with her, and I never called because - well- she’s a psychopath… and if you could please just save me I will owe you?” She sighed dramatically and patted Jim lightly on the cheek.

“Sorry Doctor, I have to go save Jim” She said with an apologetic smile and followed Jim out to the dance floor.

McCoy watched the two blondes moving underneath the colored lights of the dance floor. There was a practiced intimacy between them, and it was uncomfortable to watch his best friend and his nurse. The way Christine’s hips swayed and Jim’s hands skimmed along her waist and down to the tops of her thighs was all together hypnotic, and made McCoy feel … simply violent.

Christine played the decoy well, the brunette who had been prowling after Kirk stood to the side of the dance floor, mouth open and fists clenched. He imagined that he must have had a similar look about himself. As he started to think that if he had to watch the way Jim was whispering in Christine’s ear, and the way she in turn smiled, as they danced in that way that looked like foreplay set to music, for another minute he was going to smash a chair over his best friend’s head.

But getting a drink was probably better then starting a bar fight over a girl who wasn’t even his, so he turned to the bar and ordered whiskey shots.

He was two shots in when he felt fingertips light on his arm. And Christine hoisted herself up onto the barstool next to him. He squinted at her from over his shot, and she put her free hand that wasn’t still placed on his forearm over the top of his glass and pulled it over to her.

“Now, I thought part of the point of having you come out was so that you wouldn’t be doing something like drinking alone on your birthday.”

“Where’s Jim?”

“Oh… the girl in question left, so I’m off the hook.” McCoy snorted.

“Chapel, I’m hardly great company right now, you might as well go with him.” Christine frowned.

“I don’t want to.”

“You’d rather sit around with an old fart like me then go party with Jim Kirk? You do know that nearly every girl in the academy would donate a kidney to have the sort of alone time you had with him, right?”

“I didn’t come out tonight to spend time with Jim. I came out to see you.” Honesty like that was entirely unfamiliar to him, and he expected it was more blunt then she had intended, because as he watched Christine’s face flushed clean up to her ears. “Besides” She added hastily. “Jim found some girl to go make out with.” McCoy snorted out a laugh to that and was rewarded with her small smile. But then she leaned in, so close he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheeks and whispered. “Look, it’s awfully noisy here, do you want to go somewhere else?”

It excited him in a strange way, like he was fifteen and back in High School in Georgia.  
It was the equivalent of a note in his palm.

Do you like me? Circle yes or no.

So he licked his lips and nodded.

**

Ten O’clock at night and the shuttle he followed her into was brimming with students, civilians, and a few other cadets.

He found himself pressed into one of the corners, he braced his arms, palms flat against one of the walls, putting a barrier between Christine and the shoving, jostling mess of people.

“Doctor, are you protecting me?” She said with a small smile.

“Every man on this damn bucket of bolts looks ready to eat you alive.” He told her.

“ _Every_ man?” She grinned like a pleased cat.

“Honey, you’re taking advantage of the whiskey in me. You’re trying to get me to say something I’m gonna regret come morning.” He groaned. Oh, she was trouble all right. She glanced over his shoulder at the small screen in the shuttle’s wall opposite them, displaying the shuttle’s route, and pressed the stop request button near her.

McCoy had to practically dig his heels into the ground when the shuttle stopped to not fall flat on his back.

“This is us.” She said, grabbing his hand and pulling him after her over the jumble of people in the shuttle. They stepped out onto the junction of Lyon and Bay st, and the cold night air hit him like a slap in the face.

Christine’s fingers were still casually tangled with his own, as she pulled her sweater close around her with her free hand and coaxed him, almost like a nervous horse, to follow her. He squinted ahead into the relative darkness as he followed her, an expanse of lawn, a small lake, columns rising up in front of a large domed structure that looked like ruins from the books of Greek mythology his father read him as a boy.

He stopped, causing her to stop as well, and almost trip. She looked back at him, confused.

“Chapel, what the Hell is this place?” She shrugged and released his hand. He regretted stopping immediately; she probably thought he was an ass now.

“It used to be the Palace of Fine Arts, I think…? They had concerts and a museum, a couple of centuries ago. It isn’t really used for anything anymore. But it’s pretty and it’s quiet, and I like it, and I thought we could talk here.” She chewed on her bottom lip as he considered this. It was an odd habit of hers, endearing, but odd.

“All right.” He conceded and followed her to the water’s edge and a bench. It was quiet, except for the sound of a few crickets it was almost silent. So he sat next to her, in the quiet, listening to the crickets and the soft noise of the breeze across the water, the breeze that stirred her hair and lifted the scent of her perfume over to him. “Why this place?” He asked finally. She looked over at him, all silvery in the moonlight.

“It’s nice isn’t it? I don’t know, I come here a lot to study. My roommate, well… she’s a bit of a party girl, and I don’t have enough fingers to count the times that I’ve had an exam in the morning and she’s had a boy back to our place.”

“Sounds like someone I know.” McCoy snorted and Christine smiled. “Speaking of which, you seem like an awfully nice girl to have gotten mixed up with Jim Kirk. Why the Hell were you with him.”

“You make it sound like we had an actual relationship. I think we both know that Jim doesn’t _do_ relationships.” McCoy rubbed his temple.

“You know what I mean kid.” She flipped her hair lightly off of her shoulders.

“I… I owed him. He came to my rescue once, so I thought a date really wasn’t that much to ask in return. The fact that it ended up being more then that, and for as long as it did was a little strange. But you know Jim, he’s not exactly boyfriend material. But he’s a good guy, and a good friend, faults and all.”

“True enough.” He conceded.

“Your accent comes out a lot when you drink, you know that?” She told him, and he raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t get me wrong, I like it.”

“Could say the same to you, you know. If I hadn’t seen you drunk that one time I’d never even know you had one.” Now Christine frowned, and looked away from him, toying nervously with her hair.

“I don’t like people to know where I come from. I spent years working on getting rid of that damn accent.”

“Oh?” He asked and if possible she seemed to frown more, still not looking at him as she dug patterns in the dirt with toe of her shoe.

“I joined Starfleet because it’s about where you’re going, and not where you’ve been. And there are about a hundred things back in Louisiana I’d like to just bury. I mean, I came here to start over, you know?”

He laughed a bit at that, and it made her look back up at him, quizzically. He rummaged in his jacket pocket and pulled out his hidden flask, taking a short swig and then offering it to her.

“Here’s to starting over, and drunken southern accents.”

“Now, how are we going to get back to the Academy if we’re both drunk as sin?” She asked with a small laugh.

“It’ll be fine, trust me sweetheart, I’m a doctor.” Dear God, she actually _snorted_ when she laughed at that before taking the flask from him. “You know, this is probably the first time that we’ve been completely alone together when there wasn’t either paperwork or sutures involved.” He told her as he watched her tip her head back to take a long swig from the flask.

She mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like “not for lack of trying on my part.” And he turned to her.

“What?”

“What?” She parroted, wide brown eyes looking as innocent as all Hell, before knocking the flask back again like she was trying to match the level of mild drunkenness he was at. He snatched it back from her, vaguely noticing the faint pulse of the glowing stamp on her hand as she drew it across her lips.

And for a moment he thought he should care that he had turned thirty today, and he was sitting out in the cold night, with this girl, who wasn’t even twenty one yet, who he really shouldn’t be giving alcohol to.

The problem was, though, that he didn’t care. This was nice in its own way, the closest to at peace he had felt in years. So he passed the flask back to her, and wondered how long it would take before that southern belle voice of hers started coming out.

He didn’t know how many hours passed, but the flask was empty and he felt a light bump against his shoulder as her head came to rest on it and she snuggled against him.

“Hey now… what’s this then?” He grumbled. Christine ignored the gruffness in his voice and pressed closer.

“It’s cold, and I’m sleepy, and you smell good.” She murmured and he almost wished that it didn’t take drinking to get her vowels to sound that way. He sighed and ruffled her hair lightly.

“All right hon, let’s get you home, it’s past your bedtime.” She whimpered something about being too tired and that she was just going to sleep here. So he took a deep breath and managed to carry her on his back, with minimal stumbling. The cold air had practically sobered him up by the time he had reached a street to hail a cab from.

***

She slept the whole cab ride back to the academy. Pressed against him, her breath coming out in soft whispers against his neck. He felt a sort of regret at having to wake her up when they stopped in front of her dorm.

All groggy and rubbing at her eyes, she wriggled out of the taxi, yawned, and leaned back into the cabin to wrap her arms around his neck and press a kiss against his cheek.

“Happy birthday again Doctor.” She said sleepily, and he almost immediately missed her scent of flowers and whiskey when she pulled away, closed the door, and stumbled across the lawn to her dormitory.

***


End file.
